


Summer Festival

by juniperberry



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Established Relationship, Gender Roles, Jossed, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 15:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperberry/pseuds/juniperberry
Summary: “I probably should have cut my hair,” Himawari said, as though reading his thoughts in the air between them, “but I thought Kimihiro might not like this as well if I did.”“Ah,” Shizuka said. “Probably not.” Kimihiro might like this just the once; their boyfriend had a strong attachment to the status quo, and they knew he wouldn’t necessarily like any permanent changes. Besides, Shizuka liked playing with Himawari’s curly hair as much as Kimihiro did.





	Summer Festival

Shizuka sat on the couch, and Himawari sat on the floor between his feet. He parted her hair in neat, economical movements, braiding the long curly hanks together. It was largely silent in their little apartment; the only sound, outside of the swish and crackle of hair being plaited, was the sound of children running around outside, excited for the coming evening.

“I didn’t know you knew how to braid hair, Shizuka-kun,” Himawari said, after several minutes of silence. He grunted.

“I learned when I was little,” he said. “A lot of kids thought I was a girl. So I learned how to braid hair.”

Himawari giggled. “You must have been so cute!”

“Hmm,” he said. He finished the braid and got out the bobby pins. “How do you want this pinned up?”

“Oh,” she said, standing, “I’ll do that. I have to get dressed, anyway. Then I’ll come help you, okay?”

Shizuka nodded. There was no reason to hurry; Kimihiro was still at work, and probably would be for a while yet. So he got up to make some tea while Himawari got dressed. 

She emerged from the bathroom only a few minutes later, her hair coiled up on her head, and wearing a neatly cleaned hoodie sweatshirt. A large baseball cap was slung over one wrist, and she was wearing worn jeans. She had apparently used some bandages to bind up her breasts, as the shirt didn’t fill out the way it normally should have.

“I’m ready to help,” she said. She set down the cap on the kitchen counter.

Shizuka nodded and led the way into the bedroom. The komon, decorated with a discreet pattern of green maple leaves on a dark green background, was laid out on the bed; first, though, came the hadajuban and the susoyoke. He peeled off his shirt and pants and pulled on the tabi. He remembered his mother and grandfather helping him dress when he was still a small child—first the tabi, then the hadajuban and the susoyoke. Himawari wouldn’t need to help him until the obi, but she did anyway, through the nagajabun and collar, tying it firmly with the cotton ribbons, and helping him into the kimono proper. 

“You look so nice, Shizuka-kun,” she said, as she helped him tuck in the folds of the kimono, so that it wouldn’t trail on the ground. Shizuka was tall enough that this wouldn’t have been much of a problem anyway, but kimonos were expensive, and Kimihiro would screech if he got it stained through carelessness.

Himawari helped him with the sash, the obi-ita, and the obi itself. “Wow, Shizuka-kun,” she said, “you’re really going all-out for Kimihiro-kun, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, and held the obi firmly while she made a bow. His shoulders were a bit broad for it, but overall he ought to make a very nice married lady. His hair had grown out just enough to pull it off, one of the many reasons he’d ignored Kimihiro’s pointed suggestions to cut it. 

“I probably should have cut my hair,” Himawari said, as though reading his thoughts in the air between them, “but I thought Kimihiro might not like this as well if I did.”

“Ah,” Shizuka said. “Probably not.” Kimihiro might like this just the once; their boyfriend had a strong attachment to the status quo, and they knew he wouldn’t necessarily like any permanent changes. Besides, Shizuka liked playing with Himawari’s curly hair as much as Kimihiro did.

“Do you want to put on a little makeup?” Himawari asked, as she finished tying and tucking in his obi. She had tucked it in a conservative pattern; he wasn’t wearing a brightly colored furisode, which had long dangling sleeves and long trails of patterned silk from the obi. He was, after all, very much taken, and furisode were for young single girls.

“A very little,” he said at last. “No more than any other married person.”

Himawari giggled and dragged him into the bathroom. She didn’t apply much makeup at all—a little gloss for his lips and a very little something around his eyes. “You probably wouldn’t be able to pass as a woman unless you really worked at it, Shizuka-kun,” she said, smiling, “but I think you look quite pretty!” She combed his hair for him, and he glanced at the mirror. He really couldn’t pass as a woman if he opened his mouth…but if he kept mostly silent, most people wouldn’t think twice about him, or think him a man straight away. His hair was just long enough to curl around his ears and the nape of his neck; not overly masculine, nor overly feminine, but somewhere in between the two.

“It’s too bad I can’t go in a suit,” Himawari said as she set the comb down. “I’ll look kind of like a high school kid, won’t I? But you look like a young married lady, Shizuka-kun! I’m so jealous.”

“Next time,” he said, “we’ll make Kimihiro dress up, and you and I will dress normally.”

Himawari covered her mouth as she exploded into giggles. “Kimihiro-kun would look so cute!” she said, her words bubbling up.

Shizuka felt a corner of his mouth twitch. Kimihiro would look very cute—especially since he’d be torn between mortification and a desire to see them happy, and mixed emotions always produced the best expressions on his face.

“Anyway,” Shizuka said, “you’d have to cut your hair to wear a suit, and Kimihiro wouldn’t really like it.”

She nodded. “I know,” she said. “But I kind of wonder how he’ll take this. Will he want to go to the festival with a high school boy and a married woman?”

“He wants to go with you and I,” Shizuka said. “It doesn’t really matter what we wear or how we look.”

Himawari smiled at him and took his hand. “I really do love you two, Shizuka-kun,” she said softly, her lips brushing against the pair of rings on his third finger. She wore a similar pair. “Thank you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Kimihiro would have said something in return—that he loved her, that there was no need for thanks—but Shizuka was never all that good at words, and actions sometimes spoke more eloquently.

She gave him a bright smile. “Don’t smudge that gloss too much,” she said. “Kimihiro-kun isn’t home yet, and I want him to see you all dressed up!”

“Ah,” he said. Then, for a lack of anything better to say: “There’s tea.”

***  
When Kimihiro got home that evening, he was sore and tired from working at his restaurant job and Yuuko’s place. All he really wanted was to lay down for a little bit. But tonight there was a festival at the nearest shrine, and Himawari had been excited about it all week. There was simply no way he could disappoint her.

“I’m home,” he called, opening the door to the apartment they shared and gratefully dropping his shoes into the genkan. “Himawari-chan? Shizuka?”

“Over here, Kimihiro-kun,” Himawari said from the kitchen, and he turned to them, a smile on his face.

He could feel it freeze as he took in their clothes. Himawari was wearing regular blue jeans and a violet cotton sweatshirt with a hood, with MOKONA blazoned across the chest in white Roman letters (which told him all he needed to know about where it came from), but there wasn’t nearly as much chest as there ought to have been. Her hair was braided and pinned to her scalp, so only small strands hung around her neck and ears. She was sitting at the kotatsu with Shizuka, and he nearly gave Kimihiro a heart attack.

Shizuka was wearing a kimono. A lady’s kimono, with leaf and flower patterns decorating it. His hair was framing his face in feathery locks—and was that lip-gloss? He looked like a woman, almost—a lady just married, perhaps, especially with the way he was looking at Kimihiro.

“Welcome home,” Shizuka said, in that same low, stoic deadpan voice, and Kimihiro remembered to breathe.

“Er,” he said. “Is there something going on I ought to know about…?”

“No,” Himawari said brightly. “We were just waiting for you to come home, so we can go to the festival.” She held up a smooth, cylindrical ceramic cup. “Do you want some tea and cake before we go? There will be plenty to eat there, so you don’t have to cook tonight.”

Tea sounded very, very good—something to bring him out of the dream he was in. “Sure,” he said, and sat at the kotatsu with them. Himawari poured him a cup of tea and Shizuka put a plate with a piece of cake on it in front of him. It was a light cake, flavored like green tea.

“The cake is good,” he said. “Who made it?”

“Shizuka-kun,” Himawari said, flashing Shizuka a smile. Kimihiro felt only a small flash of the old jealousy. There had been years of it, where it needn’t have been; and then there had been a year of it, where it had festered between the three of them. But they had moved through it, like a bad rainstorm, and it didn’t live in him as it once had.

“I like green tea,” was all Shizuka said, drinking his hot green tea and eating his green tea cake with unconscious aplomb. Or maybe it was conscious. Kimihiro could never tell, even now. 

He ate the slice of cake in front of him and drank two cups of green tea, and that was enough to fortify him. “Ah…um…can I ask why Shizuka is wearing a kimono like…like that?”

Himawari gave a soft giggle. “Shizuka-kun and I decided it would be a fun idea to go to a festival dressed up,” she said. “I wanted to go as a salary man in a business suit, but I would’ve had to cut my hair really short, and I didn’t want to do that.” She patted her chest. “So Yuuko-san thought I ought to go as a high school boy, and she gave me this sweatshirt. I’ve got a baseball cap that can go over my hair.”

Kimihiro looked at Shizuka. “Why the kimono?”

Shizuka gave him a mild look. “You always wanted to see what I looked like dressed in a kimono, right?” he said, and sipped his tea. Kimihiro tried to keep his face from turning red and knew it was a useless gesture. He had always wondered what Shizuka would look like—or had looked like—dressed in a girl’s kimono, but he’d never said as much. And Shizuka looked…and Himawari looked….

“It’s getting late,” Shizuka said, rising gracefully to his feet. Himawari stood up as well. 

“You should get changed for the festival, Kimihiro-kun,” Himawari said. “Shizuka and I laid out your yukata in the bedroom.”

“Oh, thanks,” he said, and climbed to his feet. They had picked the light blue one, marked with single stripes of black paralleling the seams. He stripped off his work clothes and into the cotton yukata with a sigh of relief. It had been a long day, and while he loved the pair of them, seeing Shizuka in a feminine kimono and Himawari dressed like a boy was not exactly something that he considered restful.

Though it was…interesting.

***  
Himawari pulled the cap on over her hair and checked her reflection in a mirror to make sure it was straight. It had an embroidered picture of Mokona on it, black on a black background, but she couldn’t see it, since the cap was backwards. It was just big enough to cover all of her hair and still sit comfortably. She padded into the living room and sat down to pull on her sneakers. Shizuka had already pulled out a pair of geta sandals he usually wore to festivals, and Kimihiro had just left the bedroom, a pair of flat zori sandals in his hand.

“Almost ready,” Kimihiro said. He was a little red when he looked at them, and Himawari smiled. They’d managed to fluster him. He was so cute when he was flustered.

“Me too,” Shizuka said, and slipped into the geta as she opened the front door. Kimihiro followed easily, and Himawari locked it behind them. She was the only one with enough pockets to hold the keys and a wallet.

“S-so how do I address you?” Kimihiro asked, glancing from one to the other. “I can’t really call you Himawari-chan, can I?”

“Himawari-kun,” Shizuka offered, and Kimihiro glared at him.

“For your information, Mr. I’m-So-Dense, ‘Himawari’ is a cute girl’s name, not a boy’s name!”

Himawari giggled. “I don’t have to pass as a boy tonight, Kimihiro-kun,” she said, touching his arm. He relaxed immediately, covering her hand with his. Two rings gleamed on one of his fingers in the pool of light left by the porch light above their door.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said. “You look like such a tomboy, Himawari-chan!”

“Good,” she said, “that’s what I was going for.”

“And me?”

Kimihiro looked at Shizuka, and Himawari could see the red in his cheeks again. “You look, uh…really good,” he said, turning his eyes away to the concrete floor. Himawari leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“I told you Kimihiro-kun would like it,” she said, stepping closer and kissing Shizuka’s cheek as well. He made a sound that Kimihiro usually called a grunt, but which made it clear he was happy.

“We’re going to be late if we stay here,” Kimihiro said, and stepped forward. Himawari followed him, and Shizuka followed her, the clack-clack-clack-clack of his sandals loud against the cement. Once they got down to the street Kimihiro paused, and then offered Shizuka his arm. Shizuka blinked at him.

“You’re dressed like a married lady,” Kimihiro said, his voice huffy. “If people are going to think you’re married, they may as well think it’s to me.”

Himawari had to cover her mouth to stifle the giggles. Kimihiro was so possessive of them sometimes, and so embarrassed by it.

Shizuka gave Kimihiro, and then Himawari, a startled look, but then he stepped close and threaded his arm around the one Kimihiro offered. “At least on the way,” he said. Kimihiro didn’t say anything; instead, he looked at Himawari, and offered his other arm.

“I know you’re a high school boy tonight,” he said, “but….”

She stepped forward and hooked her arm through his. “At least on the way,” she said, and gave him a bright smile. He gave her one back, warm if not as wide, and they started off for the shrine where the festival was undoubtedly in full swing.

***  
The festival was held at a local shrine, closer to them than Shizuka’s temple, and within easy walking distance. There were long strings of lanterns everywhere, and stalls full of food—everything from yakisoba to ramen to takoyaki to shaved ice and sweets. There were games, children running everywhere, couples, old men and women in light summer yukatas, groups of high school and college students. There were even a few spirits, but they weren’t the hungry, dangerous kind; Kimihiro thought he even recognized one or two. 

Himawari looked around and smiled at the little kids at the goldfish booth. Shizuka walked around with his arms folded, and Kimihiro noticed he mostly glanced at the food. Typical bottomless pit, he thought.

“Oh,” Himawari said, “takoyaki! Kimihiro-kun, Shizuka-kun, do you want some?”

“Sure,” Shizuka said, and Kimihiro echoed him. Himawari jogged down to the takoyaki booth, which was decorated with a bright pink paper octopus, while he and Shizuka found a place to sit, on a bench beneath a leafy maple tree. Even with her hair pinned up and dressing like a boy, she was so cute it hurt. Little curly strands worked themselves out from under the cap, and the jeans were loose, but not that loose. Kimihiro almost wanted to yell or scream, because they both had him flustered and interested in a number of things that have nothing to do with hanging around at a festival crowded with people almost since before they left the apartment, and he knew most of it was his fault. He didn’t expect Himawari to look so cute with her hair up and a baseball cap covering it, or for Shizuka to look so demure and attractive dressed in a kimono appropriate for a married woman. 

It was the lip-gloss, Kimihiro decided. It was the lip-gloss, and the way he could tell Himawari had put on no makeup at all. 

Himawari jogged back, a paper bowl full of takoyaki in her hands. There were toothpicks on one side. She offered them to Kimihiro and Shizuka, plucking one out of the bowl with her fingers and biting into it. She wasn’t a proper girl tonight, Kimihiro thought. She was enjoying not being one in the eyes of the people around her, and perhaps in the eyes of her two favorite people, as well. Flakes of dried seaweed littered her fingers and the corner of her mouth, and he noticed for the first time that her nails were cut short and unpolished.

Shizuka, by contrast, was not munching loudly and rapidly, as he usually did. Instead he was eating the takoyaki with a toothpick, taking small, delicate bites. It was so ladylike Kimihiro almost didn’t recognize him for a moment. 

“Darling,” Shizuka said, in that flatly deadpan voice, and Kimihiro was snapped out of his reverie like a bullet snapping out of a gun.

“Don’t call me ‘darling’ with that voice,” he said peevishly. “It’s not cute.”

Shizuka was immensely unimpressed with this pronouncement, and simply waved the takoyaki-on-a-toothpick he was holding out. Kimihiro reached for it. Shizuka pulled it just out of reach. Kimihiro growled.

“What’s the big deal, you jerk?” he asked, reaching for it again. Shizuka wasn’t smiling, but Kimihiro could almost feel him smirking. Invisibly smirking.

“Open your mouth,” he said, and Kimihiro knew that couldn’t be fair. Shizuka shouldn’t be able to turn his stomach to hot jelly with just a glance and a few words, but he had, and Kimihiro could only blame it on that kimono and the lip-gloss and Himawari’s knowing, smiling eyes on them. He glanced at her and she was munching on another takoyaki, but she was watching them with a small smile on her face, too. 

“Not in public,” he said, and snatched the takoyaki and toothpick out of Shizuka’s hand. Himawari giggled and Shizuka just watched him. Kimihiro could feel himself turning red, a steady unnerving heat that climbed up his face. 

“Why not, Kimihiro-kun?” Himawari asked. She held another takoyaki in her fingers. “There aren’t many people around here.”

“It’s still…Himawari-chan!”

She held the takoyaki against his lips. Kimihiro could feel Shizuka’s fingers on his wrist, stroking slowly, and that didn’t help the hot jelly feeling.

“Is it that I look like a high school boy?” Himawari asked, her voice soft and a little sad. She pulled the takoyaki away from his mouth. Kimihiro caught hold of her wrist and shook his head.

“No, that’s not it at all!” And it wasn’t. He’d walked around with Shizuka nearly glued to his side sometimes, so that certainly wasn’t it. “It’s just…there are still people around, and…this isn’t—“

Shizuka broke in. “Not something for other people’s eyes?”

Kimihiro nodded rapidly. “It isn’t that you look like a boy,” he said, and he gave her a smile. “And it isn’t that I’m ashamed, or I don’t want the two of you. It’s just…kind of embarrassing in public. And I don’t…I don’t like having to share you with other, rude people who don’t know how not to stare.”

This was directed at a small group of high school girls, who were watching the three of them quite avidly, as well as a ghost and a small spirit crouched on the ground. At his words, though, the girls turned red and promptly found other places to look, and the ghost vanished into the branches of the tree. The small spirit, with its single yellow eye, kept staring. 

Himawari glanced at them and smiled at him. “I forgot,” she said, “that you don’t like being teased unless it’s very private.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he was; he felt like he was ruining her fun, and Shizuka’s too, even if the jerk had started it.

“It’s okay,” Himawari said. 

“We shouldn’t tease you,” Shizuka added, munching on another takoyaki as he normally would, loudly chewing with no regard for his image or the lip-gloss.

Himawari nodded solemnly and sat down next to Kimihiro, the paper bowl of takoyaki still in her hands. “We’re sorry, Kimihiro-kun. No more teasing.”

“Not till we get home,” Shizuka said, through a mouthful of food. Kimihiro tried to glare at him and failed miserably.

***

They stayed a little longer at the festival, sampling the food and playing a few games. Shizuka and Himawari had decided to be good, and they didn’t try to tease Kimihiro any longer. Though, Shizuka thought, the twit probably had to have been at least a little wound up to get so twitchy so early. 

They made their way home, beneath the light of the full moon and several streetlights. Shizuka peered over at Himawari, on the other side of Kimihiro.

"I think he liked it," he said. Kimihiro glared at him. Himawari giggled.

"I think so too," she said, and kissed Kimihiro's mouth, which was enough to shut him up without being told.

"I think he really liked those jeans," Shizuka said, "and me in a kimono."

Kimihiro sputtered. "I thought you said no teasing until we got home?"

"We're almost there," Shizuka said. If Kimihiro was so distracted he couldn't tell they were only a block or two away, it wasn't his fault.

"'Almost there' doesn't count," Kimihiro groused, and Shizuka smiled inwardly. 

"And I can tell you're--you're smirking or something, you ass," he said, pointing. Shizuka grabbed his hand and lipped his fingers, which shut his boyfriend up as effectively as a kiss.

Well, for a moment.

"Wha--we're in--we're in public--"

"No one's around at this time of night," Himawari said sensibly; one more reason Shizuka liked her. "And look, Kimihiro-kun--our apartment complex is right there." 

Kimihiro tugged his hand away from Shizuka's mouth. "I--it can wait till we're behind closed doors," he said, huffy from embarrassment. Shizuka smiled and led the way up the stairs, trying to tread softly so that his geta sandals wouldn't disturb the neighbors.

Himawari let them into their apartment, and there was a brief moment in the genkan when Shizuka carefully removed his geta and Himawari toed off her sneakers and Kimihiro kicked off his zori sandals, and then they were all a mess, tumbling into the bedroom and onto the futon, half-laughing or giggling.

"You really do look good in that kimono," Kimihiro said, grabbing Shizuka with one hand and tugging him closer. Himawari curled into his other side, her mouth on the side of his neck and her eyes closed, as though this was the place she had always wanted to be.

"We thought you'd like it," Shizuka said. "Aren't you worried about wrinkling it?"

Kimihiro made a frustrated sound deep in his throat. "You talk to much," he said. He leaned back on the futon and Himawari fell with him, the cap knocked off and her curly hair escaping the braids. "You can either keep it on and get it stained, or you can shuck it off and come over here, where you ought to be."

Himawari looked up at him, and smiled. "I like the way he looks, too," she murmured, reaching out and tracing a hand down the kimono's front. "You really ought to hurry, Shizuka-kun."

"Ah," was all he said to that.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I liked this a lot more coming back to it after a decade, and I can see some things that I'm still learning about and playing around with in this fic. I haven't spied anything on a re-read that might come across as misgendering or transphobic or anything like that, but if you spot something I missed, PLEASE don't hesitate to tell me!


End file.
